Presently, main spread pathways of various known epidemic diseases (such as influenza virus and etc.) are by air or droplets, so that various related behavior including breathing, coughing, speaking and sneezing may spread pathogens of epidemic diseases. In detail, when patients breath, cough, speak or sneeze, exhaled air of human bodies generally carries a great quantity of aerosols which has a particle diameter ranged between about 5 um and 10 um and may contain various infectious pathogens, so that the pathogens can speedily spread by the aerosols. Thus, it is necessary to develop related samplers and analysis methods, in order to know which kind of pathogen the patients carry in advance before the patients fall ill, or to carry out the purpose of public health and preventive medicine for preventing the epidemic diseases.
Traditionally, many related researches adopt an invasive method of throat swab to enter the throat and the upper palate of the patient for reciprocally scraping the throat and the upper palate several times, in order to collect a sample of throat mucus of the patient. Then, a molecular examination technology is used to analyze if any pathogens exist in the sample of the throat mucus. However, because the throat swab is an invasive means, the common people can not fully accept it, and the scraped portion of the patient may be hurt. Meanwhile, the consistency of the examination result is not high, so that the invasive method of the throat swab is only suitably applied to suspect or infected patients, and difficult to be widely applied to a large-scale plan of public health for preventing the epidemic diseases.
Moreover, see K. P. Fennelly, et al., “Cough-generated Aerosols of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: A New Method to Study Infectiousness”, Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Mar. 1, 2004; 169(5): 604-609, which discloses a method to study infectiousness by incubating Mycobacterium tuberculosis sampled from cough-generated aerosols of patients, wherein a cough aerosol sampling system is used and connected to a flexible tube. The cough aerosol sampling system is further provided with two impactors therein. Furthermore, a 7H-11 petri dish is used as a sampling medium. In operation, the patient firstly holds the flexible tube in his/her mouth several minutes to sample Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Then, the 7H-11 petri dish is used to incubate Mycobacterium tuberculosis for obtaining an incubated result to determine if the incubated result is positive or negative. However, the foregoing method only can control the sampling time, but can not precisely control the amount of exhaled air. As a result, the method only can provide a qualitative result, but can not carry out a precise quantitative analysis. In addition, the analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by incubating wastes too much time (about 35 days), while the cough-generated aerosols usually contains other pathogens which may affect the determination accuracy of the incubated result.
Besides, see Huynh K N, et al., “A new method for sampling and detection of exhaled respiratory virus aerosols”. Clin. Infect. Dis. 2008; 46: 93-95, which discloses a method for sampling and detection of exhaled respiratory virus aerosols, wherein a mask-like device similar to N95 surgical mask is provided with an electret device therein for sampling aerosol particles in exhaled air of a patient. In operation, the patient wears the mask-like device, and coughs or breathes about several minutes. Then, the aerosol particles are separated from the mask-like device, and analyzed by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to determine if the aerosol particles contain parainfluenza virus (PIV), influenza virus or other pathogens. However, the foregoing method never detects influenza virus in the mask-like device worn by the patient. In addition, the method only can control the sampling time, and the exhaled air may leak out from edges of the mask-like device. The aerosol particles on the mask-like device may return the respiratory tract of the patient due to breathing behavior. As a result, the method can not precisely control the amount of exhaled air, so that the method still can provide a qualitative result, but can not carry out a precise quantitative analysis.
Furthermore, related researches studied by the inventor of the present invention found that samples of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in air of sickrooms may be collected and determined to be positive, but the concentration difference of Mycobacterium tuberculosis between these samples may be 10,000 times. Two samples having a concentration difference about 10,000 times have greatly different risks of infection. Thus, if sampling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is operated by a qualitative method, the qualitative result can not provide important information and analysis meaning represented by a concentration of quantitative volume. As a result, it is necessary to develop a quantitative sampler of PATHOGENS in EXHALED air and a quantitative analysis method using the same to solve the problems existing in the traditional technology, as described above.